A blog on issues affecting Australia's newsagents, media and small business generally. More ...

Newsagency management tip: get real data on magazines

I have been thinking about the comments from newsagents on my post on Friday about an alternative billing model for magazines. I know from my work with newsagents for many years that most do not look at their own magazine performance data – data that could have been used by them to address the magazine supply issue.  If you want to get an accurate understanding of the performance of magazines i your newsagency run your MPA Magazine Performance Report and or the Magazine Sell Through Rates Report. Both will provide a factual view of the performance of magazines in your newsagents. I’d be happy to discuss reports you produce.

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magazine distribution

Terrific newspaper book collection giveaway news to customers

We, like many Victorian newsagent,s have been handling the giveaway with the Kid’s Mini Book Collection with the Herald Sun this weekend. The bag together with the book make for a nice premium gift.

From what I’m told though, most people buying the newspaper did not know about the promotion. Oops. It’s a pity as this is the type of promotion that pitches the newspaper in a good light.

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Newspapers

US Postal Service to trial same day delivery

I mentioned here months ago that same day delivery was the next big thing in online shopping. There was further evidence of this this week with reports that the US Postal service is to trial same day delivery for online retailers.

We have print media disruption and retail disruption challenging the traditional business model.

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retail

Promoting Dog’s Life magazine

We decided to promote the latest issue of Dog’s Life magazine from Universal Magazines with newspapers for the weekend. We know we have plenty of dog lovers shop with us – based on calendar sales – and this is a title that rarely is given time in the spotlight. The bonus gift with the issue and the nice looking cover should give is some incremental sales for the few days we have it in this valuable space.

Newsagents need to do more of this – chase sales. We’re retailers after all. Too many of us see magazines as a chore. I understand why. It needs to stop.

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magazines

Promoting frankie magazine

We are promoting issue 50 of frankie magazine at one of my stores with this terrific display created by one of our team members. I love how they used the cover as the background and incorporated the calendar and diary in the display.

We’ll give frankie two weeks in this prime, front of shop, location and it will reward us by attracting shoppers we want and delivering sales.

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magazines

Magazine trading term opportunity: pay only for net sales

I met with a small magazine publisher yesterday to discuss how they could build a stronger and more mutually viable relationship with newsagents. As is often the case in discussions with magazine publishers, the conversation turned to early returns and the lost sales so often shown in the data.

Now before newsagents jump on this saying early returns are the only mechanism of control they have (and which i agree with), the conversation yesterday was specifically about early returns that cost sales – returning to a point where you have significantly less stock on the shelves that your recent average sales or returning to a level where you do not benefit is network-wide sales uplift because of a cover story feature or some other reason.

Early returning of magazines is at a point where some publishers are left wondering whether the newsagency channel is the appropriate channel for the sale of magazines.

Magazine range is our only point of difference. Lose this and the future of the channel will be seriously challenged.

In the meeting yesterday, the publisher asked how newsagents would respond to a model whereby they paid only for product sold … once a title is returned they would be billed for net sales.

I’d appreciate comments here on this issue. If you had a title with an on sale of one, two or three months and did not have to pay for stock sold until you processed your returns, would you keep the title on the shelf for the full on-sale?

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magazine distribution

Scary cardboard cut-outs popular for Halloween

Leatherface, Freddy, Jason other life-size cardboard cutouts are selling well for us this Halloween. They are also working well at attracting shoppers to the broader Halloween range.  We have them located on the lease line, at the front of the business.

For any newsagents interested, we sourced the cardboard cut outs from: Alternative Distribution Pty Ltd in Victoria – 03 9334 5857. FYI, I don’t have a deal with them.

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Gifts

Tapping into Window 8 interest

With Window 8 from Microsoft around the corner we are tapping into consumer ninterest by making sure that we have Essential Guide to Windows 8 with the full cover on display and in the best location within our technology magazines. This is the kind of title likely to be purchased on impulse by browsers.

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magazines

Tapping into Pokemon love

We have made sure to place the latest Nintendo magazine and The Ultimate Guite to Pokemon next to each other since they are certain to appeal to the same shopper. We can drive sales for a title by placing it away from its usual location – depending on the cover.

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magazines

Shopping in Guangzhou

I was in Guangzhou at the start of this week and had an opportunity to check out some retail.  Competition is as fierce as I have come to expect in China. They also redefine scale. take the shopping mall in the photo. I have captured but part of the mall. Shops are full on every level. And on the lower level – at the bottom of the photo – is a floor of discount items unlike any discount area I have seen in Australia. I’d rather play rugby that get in the way of these shoppers hunting for a bargain.

What surprised me was the number of western businesses, major US and European franchises that have come to China and are operated locally. Take Starbucks … while any milk based coffee sucked because of the milk used, the Starbucks service and retail experience was identical to the US experience. The same was true in 7-Eleven.

Too often in Australia I hear people complaining about Chinese newsagents and that they do not respect the newsagency shingle because it’s not how they are. In China this week and a few weeks ago I have seen excellent examples of Chinese small business people respecting the disciplines of retail brands behind which there are disciplines. This comes back to the point I was making on Tuesday in Why 7-Eleven will beat newsagents, our lack of discipline behind the shingle – Newsagent, Newsagency , N – is our weakness.

I got to see a major book store that had a magazine department the same size as a traditional newsagents. their fixturing was almost the same as what I have seen in larger WH Smith stores in the UK.

Another two take aways from looking at so much retail in China recently are that they are customer service focused and efficient retail business operators. They know that good customer service drives sales ad that business efficiency (including inventory efficiency) drives profits. It all comes back to being good business people. I’m grateful for the opportunity for these and other insights.

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Newsagency management

Promoting interactive at the counter

We are promoting the Hallmark interactive range at the counter with this supplementary display. We made the move last week as part of our shop floor adjustments heading into Christmas.  We selected this particular placement as it is seen by most customers entering and leaving the business. It provides a second opportunity for shoppers to consider the range – especially those not visiting with such a purchase planned for this shopping visit.

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Gifts

Smart merchandising from Pacific for One Direction series

I like the attention to detail by Pacific Magazines in the counter unit provided for the five-part One Direction magazine series. The tabs separating each of the issues is clever. It is attention to detail like this that helps drive sales and guide organisation of the product. Someone at Pacific has done a terrific job here.

The One Direction titles are selling well for us – both generating traffic and being picked up by existing shoppers on impulse. It’s helping us enjoy double digit magazine growth for the last month.

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magazines

Leveraging the Pink ticket on-sale

We leveraged the massive traffic influx of shoppers yesterday purchasing tickets for the Pink concerts  by placing the latest Rolling Stone magazine featuring the singer on the cover at our Ticketek ticket counter.

Any incremental purchase on the magazine we can get makes the tactical placement worth it. The placement itself demonstrates a relevance beyond just selling concert tickets.

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magazines

Amazon speaks to magazine publishers

gigaom reports about a presentation in San Francisco by Amazon’s Vice President for Kindle content to magazine publishers on Monday about challenges publishers face as they move to digital platforms.

“Even books, which is an easier transition for people, is a difficult task. When we started, we didn’t look at who was selling digital books at the time, we looked at the print book,” Grandinetti said. “Because it’s lightweight, it’s resilient, it’s inexpensive. And the print magazine is also very very good at what it does. And the digital experience only approximates a small amount of that in many ways.”

He said the consumers love many of the things that have made books great for 500 years, and many of the challenges in getting them to adopt digital are even trickier with magazines. They tend to rely more on large glossy photos and less printed text, things that don’t always transfer as well to a variety of digital formats and devices.

Newsagents who want to be better informed about print media disruption need to read the article.

The possible end game here could be bigger than T2020. That said, I’m not scared by that. The opportunities for our business are tremendous as long as we develop business plans grounded in embracing and that serve our needs.

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Media disruption

Appreciating the Better Homes and Gardens Christmas cookbook opportunity

Newsagents should be pleased with the offer from Pacific Magazines for the Better Homes and Gardens Christmas cookbook. That we can opt in, achieve a 50% margin and enjoy delayed billing is terrific.

We are in control.

This is a beef I have with magazine distributors – they demand we pay on time yet they do not provide us with any reasonable ability to control our level of indebetedness. This to me is an area where we could challenge Network and Gotch (to a lesser extent) legally. Their treatment of newsagents with one-sided terms is appalling. It disgusts me.

Okay, rant over and back to this terrific offer from Pacific for the Better Homes and Gardens Christmas cookbook. It respects newsagents. We choose if we take it on. We choose the volume we receive. Our margin is book-level margin. The billing is delayed until December.

We have ordered for my stores. This is an excellent product backed by an excellent brand. The opportunities to promote with the magazine are excellent. I hope more publishers follow the lead from Pacific. Actually, it’s something I’d like to see ACP do with its cookbooks.

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magazine distribution

WH Smith imposes age restriction on gun magazines

UK newsagent WH Smith has banned the sale of gun magazines to under 14 year olds. While there is no regulatory restriction on the title, the company has taken the move because 14 is the age at which someone can obtain a shooters licence.

As the article in The Daily Mail points out, they are not imposing restrictions on car magazines even though you need to be 18 to own and buy a car.

The only age restrictions I am aware of for Australian magazines are those for porn titles.  It would be easy for us to check and control titles by age given the age facilities in newsagency software for tobacco products. That said, I would not be a fan (at least I don’t think so) of further restriction on the sale of magazines.

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magazines

Ink sale and counter move drive ink sales

We are enjoying tremendous double-digit growth with ink sales thanks to continuous flyer marketing to thousands of homes and businesses around our newsagency and thanks to moving ink to behind the counter.

You know you have a flyer that works when shoppers come in with the flyer in-hand the product they want circled on the flyer.  We’re focusing only on brand name ink and toner – HP, Canon, Epson and Brother. Our prices are competitive with every retailer in this space in our area – the flyer promotes this. Ink is our trojan horse, showing that our business is not expensive in the way Australians think newsagencies are expensive.

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Stationery

Corporate Express to rebrand as Staples

As expected, Corporate Express Australia is to rebrand as Staples, the name of their parent company.  Here’s part of the announcement just sent to customers:

Transition to Staples name and brand.

From Monday 29 October, Corporate Express will commence trading as Staples Australia.

Bringing our local operations further in line with our international operations means that you will benefit from a broader range of products, greater value due to strengthened global sourcing capability, and enhanced ordering and reporting processes and technologies.

Staples is the world’s largest office products company and a trusted source for office solutions. With annual sales of $25 billion, 88000 staff and a presence in 26 countries throughout the world – Staples provides products, services and expertise in the categories of office supplies, technology solutions, business furniture, print solutions, promotional marketing, kitchen supplies and facility solutions.

I am certain more changes will follow as Staples plants more feet on the ground in Australia. The implications for any business selling stationery will be wide-ranging.

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Newsagency challenges
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